Pyramid Games
by MagicInMe123
Summary: And despite the fact that Toni is the one who hit her head, Cheryl stops moving. Stops breathing. Stops existing, as she waits catatonically for the paramedics to arrive. Or, Toni falls during cheer practice and sustains some minor injuries. Cheryl starts avoiding her and for the life of her, Toni cannot figure out why.


**Sorry for any mistakes! I am simply a stressed college student in the middle of midterms but I was feeling especially inspired to publish tonight!**

"Alright ladies, let go again!" Cheryl shouted at her squad.

Toni would be lying if she said that she wasn't more than a little distracted by her girlfriend in those tiny shorts and that tight baseball style t-shirt. The HBIC printed on the back definitely didn't hurt either.

The other high schoolers in the gymnasium groaned; Cheryl was a well-established slave driver and they knew that they had to get this perfect before the captain would even consider letting them leave. On this particular Thursday night all the vixens were desperate to get out of practice and be free. The black hood had just been caught and Riverdale was finally off of lockdown.

"Let's go," Cheryl called from her position in front of the squad. "From the top. 5, 6, 7, 8."

On Cheryl's cue, the vixens began to run through their routine. The redhead watched with a hawk's eye for mistakes but found her gaze lingering on Toni's group. Betty and Veronica were on the far left, working with their stunt group; normally Toni would be with them but there were two other Vixens absent from practice due to dentist appoints or other such nonsense and Cheryl had be forced to shuffle the groups around to ensure that there were enough bases for all of the flyers. Toni was flying with a group of relatively nameless yet competent girls and Josie was the flyer in Betty and Veronica's group.

Perhaps it was the biting cold that had settled over Riverdale coupled with Cheryl's reluctance to allow the girls to wear jackets or hoodies during practice. Or maybe it was the fact that the other girls in Toni's group were tired and not paying quite as much attention as they should have been. It could have even been a puddle of sweat on the floor that caused one of the girls to lose their footing.

Maybe it was all of the above.

Cheryl watched the events unfold in slow motion. One of the bases in Toni's group slipped and lost her grip which caused the other two girls to break focus and lose theirs. Without a base supporting her, the serpent of course had nothing keeping her in the air. There was no time for her to react; Toni's natural athletic abilities did little to aid her besides her instinct to catch her own fall with her non-dominant hand.

As she toppled to the ground, Toni reached out with her left arm to break her fall. It did, but her head soon followed and fit the harsh gym floor with a sickening thump.

A beat.

And time sped up once more.

"Toni!" Cheryl shouted. Her voice was borderline hysterical but she fought to her keep her cool and be what Toni needed. In a flash she was by her girlfriend's side, deaf and blind to all other happenings in the gym.

"Toni," Veronica echoed. She, Betty, and the other quickly made their way over to the fallen Vixen who had yet to verbally respond to anything.

Betty quickly knelt down besides the tan serpent and reached out a hand to check on her only for it to be smacked away.

"Don't you fucking touch her," Cheryl growled. Her hands hovered shakily above the pink haired girl.

The blonde raised her hands, as if to show she was not a threat and Veronica placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Cheryl found herself unable to focus on anything except for the sight of her girlfriend crumpled in an awkward position on the gym floor. The atmosphere felt wrong; as if, in true pathetic fallacy form, there should be pools of blood and total darkness to match how she feels inside. Vaguely, she heard Veronica say that she was calling an ambulance to Riverdale High and quietly order the rest of the Vixens to go home. Inner circle Vixens – as Cheryl had once dubbed them – stayed behind and the redhead had never been more grateful for the subtle yet commanding presence of Veronica Lodge.

The next hour passed by in a blur.

A pair for paramedics had rushed into the gym with a stretcher for the injured girl and the promise of a vehicle outside. At first, the female paramedic had asked Cheryl to back away from Toni so that they could examine her and of course the redhead had been less than cooperative. Josie stepped in and tugged Cheryl back gently, willing to face the misplaced wrath of her best friend if necessary. But Cheryl was strangely docile; as if the lights were on but no one was truly home. Her vacant brown eyes just stared as they delicately loaded the serpent up.

The captain stayed by her girlfriend's side through it all despite her trance-like behavior; she road over with her after giving the paramedics a harsh tongue lashing for even suggesting that there was not enough room in the ambulance for her.

Toni had woken up inside the ambulance and seen Cheryl by her side. She had been in and out of consciousness ever since the paramedics had lifted the pink haired girl onto a stretcher. After being rushed into the ER at Riverdale General Hospital, the paramedics handed her off to the doctors on call, who quickly reached a consensus: a broken wrist, some bruising, and a moderately serious concussion. Once she was awake, the doctors quizzed Toni for half an hour, asking her everything from her birthday to who was President to the name of her childhood goldfish. Because her memory seemed to be intact, the doctors admitted her and told Toni that she needed to stay overnight for observation and assuming that all was well, they would release her the next morning.

"There's a group in the waiting room for you," one of her nurses mentioned off handedly as she set up Toni's IV. "I can tell them to come back tomorrow if you're not feeling up to having visitors."

"N-no no," Toni cleared her throat, her voice rusty for disuse. "Send them in, please."

The nurse smiled at her gently and nodded. Once she finished up with Toni's medicine she stood up and left for the waiting room.

* * *

"She's going to be fine Cheryl, relax," Veronica promised from her seat in the uncomfortable hospital waiting room chairs.

"You don't know that," she snarked, folding her arms righter around herself. The dull grey walls and overly harsh lighting set the Blossom girl on edge even more and she found her agitation with everyone growing by the second.

"The doctors said it's nothing too serious," Betty said gently. She reached out to put a comforting hand on Cheryl's back but the ginger went back to pacing angrily before she had a chance to make contact.

"You gotta chill out Blossom," Sweet Pea drawled from his seat between Fangs and Jughead. "T is tough as hell and she's been through a lot worse than cheerleading accident."

Toni's serpent crew had showed up immediately after Betty had called Jughead and filled him in. Betty had driven over to the trailer park and brought the whole crew with her to the hospital; Veronica had called Archie but the redheaded boy wasn't picking up his phone so she drove separately, her worry split between her boyfriend, Cheryl, and her teammate/new friend.

"Shut it, trailer trash. You weren't there, you don't know what happened," Cheryl spat.

Sweet Pea felt a spike of anger in response to Cheryl's belittling and offensive comments but Jughead gave him a subtle look that screamed let it go. The serpent leader was confident that Cheryl would apologize to Sweet Pea after she was less on edge.

"Family of Toni Topaz?" A young woman in scrubs called from the nurses' station.

Cheryl's head snapped up faster than she thought possible.

"Where is Toni? Is she alright?" The pale girl fired off her questions, anxiety dancing in her eyes.

The nurse looked apologetic and slightly frightened. "I'm sorry, I can only give that information out to family."

Cheryl opened her mouth to tear the head off of the nurse but just before she could, Sweet Pea appeared on her right.

"I'm her older brother," he cut in calmly. "It's alright, you can tell me in front of everyone. They're her family too."

Fang and Sweet Pea both had gotten away with claiming to be half and whole brothers of Toni Topaz before and no authority figure had batted an eye so they were confident this would be no different.

The nurse seemed to take their words as fact and recounted the details of Toni's injuries to the group. The entire group seemed to exhale with relief by the time she was done. The head injury had – of course – been everyone's main concern so to hear that it was a very mild concussion was the best outcome they could have hoped for. Everyone except Cheryl, that is; she had yet to release the tension in her shoulders and looked no more relieved after hearing this news than she had the moment Toni fell in the gym.

"Where is she?" the Blossom repeated.

The nurse glanced down at her clipboard. "Room 212, but only one at a time. She doesn't need a crowd right now."

Sweet Pea, Fang, and Jughead nodded once, accepting the answer and returning to their seats without a second thought. As much as they all wanted to see Toni, they knew better than to challenge her worried girlfriend.

Veronica and Betty offered Cheryl sympathetic smiles and headed off to the cafeteria with promises to bring back coffee for everyone.

"She's gonna be okay Cher," Josie promised, squeezing Cheryl's shoulder once gently. "Go see your girl."

Cheryl nodded gratefully at her friend and needed no further encouragement to take off down the hall and locate Toni's room.

* * *

It took the Vixens' captain longer than she would ever admit to gather the courage to knock on the door to her girlfriend's hospital room. She took a calming breath in an attempt to shake off her nerves and slipped into the private room.

Cheryl sucked in a shocked breath as she took in the sight before her. Toni looked so small, so hurt in her hospital bed, covered in white wrap around her arm and a set of stitches on the side of her head.

"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Toni joked from her bed. The smaller girl's voice shook her out of her trance and Cheryl plastered a signature grin on her face as she sashayed further into the room.

"Wish I could say the same Cha Cha," the Blossom girl teased.

"You came all the way to the hospital for lil ole me?" Toni asked, her eyes alight with humor.

"Please," Cheryl scoffed, checking her nails casually. "You practically have a parade waiting for you in the waiting room between your fellow deviants and the other Vixens."

"Wait, really?" Toni asked, surprised. She scanned her girlfriend's face for any sign that this was a joke and found none. The serpents, she wasn't surprised by; she, Sweet Pea, and Fangs had been through many hospital trips together over the years. But the cheerleaders, that was new.

"Really," Cheryl deadpanned. She took a seat in the small grey chair to the right of Toni's hospital bed and reached out to tangle her girlfriend's non-bruised fingers with her own.

"How are you feeling?" Cheryl asked quietly. She allowed her free hand to reach out and brush some of Toni's pink hair from her eyes.

"I feel good. The doctors are keeping me overnight for observation. Y'know, just to make sure my brain isn't total mush now," the serpent joked. She expected to see her girlfriend laugh or at the very least crack a smile but Cheryl seemed to sit up straighter and Toni saw her shoulders tense considerably.

"Hey," Toni squeezed Cheryl's pale fingers gently. "Are you alr-"

"Have you eaten? I think you need another pillow to support your neck, I don't want you straining it," Cheryl stated authoritatively. "Where is that damn nurse?"

Toni laughed quietly at Cheryl dominating nature. "I'm fine, baby. I promise. No need to scare the nursing staff."

Cheryl huffed, clearly displeased.

"God I can't want to get out of here," Toni commented off handedly.

Still, the redhead was quiet.

"Babe are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine, TT. Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" Cheryl retorted, her eyes darting to different spots in the room so she wouldn't have to look into pools of warm brown eyes.

Toni nodded slowly. She knew better than to push Cheryl to talk to her before she was ready and considering their friends were in the waiting room, expecting to see her soon, Toni decided that now was not the time to press the issue.

"So when I get the official okay tomorrow, are you gonna come spring me from this joint?" Toni asked playfully. She squeezed the ivory hand entangled with hers gently, hoping to pull Cheryl back into the present with her.

The pale girl grinned back but it didn't reach her eyes. "It would be my honor to drive you home, Antoinette."

Toni rolled her eyes playfully at her girlfriend's use of her full name but didn't comment.

"Well, not home. Just to school so I can drive my bike home."

Dark red eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "Why would you need to drive your bike home? I'll take you to school on Monday and you can drive it home after. It's not like the school is gonna tow you."

"Well I don't want to be out of commission for too long," the pink haired girl reasoned. "There's so much going on with the serpents right now and they really need me and I'm pretty useless to them if I can't drive."

"Serpent business…this weekend?" Cheryl repeated, as if the words were in another language.

"Well yeah," Toni answered, confused by Cheryl's uncertain tone. "The doctors said I'm going to be fine and I have to get to my shift at the Whyte Worm."

Cheryl removed the hand that had been tangled in long pink curls and rested it on her thigh out of Toni's view. She dug her nails deep into her pale white skin, as harshly as she dared to without crying out. The thought of Toni going right back to her gang business tomorrow made the taller girl feel physically ill.

Toni opened her mouth to change the subject, not wanting to dwell on what was clearly about to snowball into an argument but she was cut off before she could begin speaking.

Cheryl stood up so quickly that her chair rocked behind her, obviously taken off guard by the sudden motion.

"I have to go," Cheryl said robotically. "I'm really glad you're okay Toni. I'll send in the others."

The redhead leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Toni's pink lips and by the time the serpent even registered the movement, Cheryl was gone. The only evidence she had ever been there at all was the faint lipstick stain she left behind.

If Toni hadn't been completely sure that something was upsetting Cheryl before, she certainly was now. The kiss had been too short, too distant for Toni not to be concerned. Before she had any real time to process what had happened, Sweet Pea, Fangs, and Jughead entered her room with big smiles and goofy jokes about the perils of cheerleading.

"So how are you doing Tiny?" Sweet Pea asked, settling down and taking the seat Cheryl had vacated.

"I'm doing good, Pea," Toni promised, punching him in the shoulder lightly. "Still tough enough to take any of you."

"We never doubted it for a second," Jughead teased, leaning casually against the wall.

"We expected to be waiting out there for a while," Fangs commented. "Something happen between you and your lady?"

"I don't actually know," Toni confessed. "She was acting weird. I asked her to take me back to school to get my bike and it was like a switch flipped; she just got up and left."

"Cheryl's complicated," Jughead offered. "For what it's worth, she's been terrified ever since they brought you in. Betty said she's never seen her so freaked out as when you fell in the gym."

Guilt began to seep into Toni's veins and her heart seized in her chest at the thought at Cheryl panicking over her injury. Her fellow serpents hung around for the better part of the next hour; Fangs promised to take her to pick up her bike tomorrow if Cheryl couldn't or wouldn't and Sweet Pea said he'd cover her shift on Saturday night so that she could have the weekend off. The boys traded their spots with Veronica, Betty, and Josie who popped in to wish her well before they too went home for the night.

The combination of stress and painkillers knocked the pink haired serpent out and she found herself sleeping deeply through the night.

* * *

The next morning her doctor checked her IV, blood pressure, and examined her arm once again. When she was satisfied, they called in the neurologist who repeated all of the same memory and focused based tests that she had done yesterday. One final flashlight pen eye test was administered and the neurologist left to consult with Toni's physician. With some assistance from a very kind and very gay male nurse, Toni managed to dress herself in some sweatpants and a plain black t shirt that Sweet Pea had left for her. When they both deemed her healthy, she was given her discharge papers and Fangs was waiting for her in the waiting room.

He grinned wolfishly at her as she approached. He wrapped his muscular arm gently around her shoulders and guided them out into the parking lot. "

Where to, T?" he asked.

Cheryl had yet to respond to any of her texts so the tan girl knew that she needed to go to Thistlehouse and sort out whatever was bothering her girl but the serpent was uncomfortable leaving her motorcycle at Riverdale High all weekend.

"Can we pick up my bike?" she asked hopefully.

Fangs nodded slowly. "As long as you promise I won't have to visit you in the hospital again for a long, long time, yeah."

Toni smiled at him gratefully. "I'll be careful, serpent's honor."

The boy she had come to love like a brother seemed to sense that Toni was not in the mood for conversation so he allowed silence to take over the car as they drove back to their new high school.

* * *

Cheryl had not slept a wink.

She tried, oh how she had tried to fall asleep and give her mind a break from the sound of the sickening thump she heard when Toni hit her head on the ground. The scene was narrated by her mother's voice, telling her that she was deviant and loveless. Perhaps her dearest mother was right. Maybe she _was_ a monster and everyone around her got hurt.

Loveless.

Without Toni Topaz maybe she was loveless. And she had almost lost the girl just hours ago. Cheryl spent her day wilting in her bed, tormenting herself with memories of seeing Toni so small in her hospital bed. Despite banishing her mother from Thistlehouse days ago, Cheryl could still hear the ghost of thunderous high heeled clicks downstairs. A cancer, her mother had called her once. Penelope had drilled into Cheryl's mind that she was a bad omen who brought misfortune to everyone in her life and the heiress was having a hard time finding any evidence to the contrary. First Jason, then her father, and now Toni. The dark, dangerous thoughts that filled Cheryl's mind that fateful day at Sweetwater River came crawling back and not for the first time, she wondered if the world would be better off without her in it.

The redhead had no idea how much time had passed but the loud creak of the front door to the mansion alerted her that someone was home. Considering her Nana never left home and the caretaker was already in the house, only one other person had a key, Toni Topaz. Considering her home life was almost as unfortunate as Cheryl's on account of the fact that her uncle frequently locked her out of their tiny, poorly kept trailer, it only made sense for her to move into the mansion with her girlfriend. Not wanting to rush things, Cheryl had insisted that they live like proper roommates, giving her girlfriend her own bedroom and her own set of keys. Most of the time the tan girl ended up sleeping in Cheryl's bed anyways out of preference but it was important to the Blossom that Toni had her own space should she ever want to be alone.

Sooner than she expected, Cheryl heard a light knock on her own oversized, dark wood door. The knock was tentative and could only belong to one, Toni Topaz.

Cheryl said nothing and after a moment, Toni slipped quietly into the bedroom. Seeing that her girlfriend was making no move to get up or even acknowledge her existence, Toni slipped off her shoes and trotted over to Cheryl's king sized bed.

"Hey Cher," Toni muttered, smiling affectionately.

The redhead was more than a little shocked by the fact that the gang member didn't seem to be upset with her at all. She had been expecting anger, yelling, possibly even a slew of insults but the taller girl forced herself to remember that this was her girlfriend, not her mother.

"Hi TT," Cheryl said softly. She sat up in her bed and scooted towards the middle while pushing back the comforter as an invitation to the tan girl, which she quickly accepted. "How are you feeling?"

"Good as new," she answered honestly. "And you?"

Cheryl ignored her question but cuddled into the pink haired girl's side, wrapping her long arm delicately around small tan shoulders.

"How did you get here?"

"Fangs, sort of," Toni took a deep breath, preparing for Cheryl's reaction. "He drove me from the hospital to school and then I drove here."

"What," Cheryl snapped, sitting up straighter while ensuring she didn't jostle the other girl. "You drove your _motorcycle_ here? Toni you just released from the hospital this morning!"

In the back of her mind, intense guilt nibbled away at the ginger. If she had answered her phone or picked Toni up herself – like she had promised the other girl she would – then they wouldn't even need to be having this conversation.

"I remember," Toni chuckled, gesturing to her stitches. "But I made it here in once piece and that's what counts, right?"

"Wrong," Cheryl ground out through gritted teeth. "What the Hell is wrong with you? You can't even use your arm and you thought driving that…that monstrosity was a good idea? Maybe you hit your head harder than we thought."

Toni was floored by her girlfriend's reaction. She had to consciously remind herself that this version of Cheryl only came out when she was in pain or scared and it was obvious that she was in a bad place but it was still difficult to deal with the pale girl when she was like this. The injured cheerleader opened her mouth to defend herself only to be cut off once again.

"I told you I would drive you to school Monday. Why did you have to get on that stupid metal deathtrap? You _just_ got out of the hospital this morning," Cheryl said accusingly.

"Blossom, I've been driving that motorcycle for years. I've been driving it the entire time that we've been dating and now all of the sudden you have a problem with it?" Toni challenged. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked Cheryl up and down, as if it would give her a clue as to what was making her girlfriend so upset.

"This is not about your dumb bike," Cheryl shouted. "You don't understand."

"Then what Cheryl?" Toni asked, exasperated. "If I don't understand, make me understand. I want to know why you're acting like this."

Cheryl looked around desperately for a something, someone, _anything,_ to blame for what happened to girlfriend but after replaying the scene every single time she closed her eyes for the past several hours, the redhead came to conclusion that it was just an accident. A horrifying, scarring accident that the Blossom girl was confident she would have nightmares about for the next year - at least.

"Cher…" the serpent murmured. She could sense exactly how fragile her girlfriend was at the moment and knew it was critical that she choose her words very carefully.

"Baby, I do way more dangerous stuff than cheer or riding a motorcycle every day. I'm in a gang, remember?" She offered a disarming smile and hoped it would diffuse the situation.

It was the wrong thing to say.

"You think I don't _know_ that?" Cheryl barked. She ripped her forearm out from under Toni's comforting hand and wretched away from the tan girl as fury flooded her system once again. Like an angry, caged, tiger, Cheryl began to pace back and forth across her bedroom. She put as much space between herself and the bed where her girlfriend currently was as possible.

"You think I don't think about your gang affiliation every time you walk out the door in the morning? Or every time you get a phone call from Sweet Pea or Jughead or one of other little gang friends?" she spat. Toni could see that Cheryl was beginning to lose her cool and there was nothing the pink haired girl could do besides allow her girlfriend to unload the swarm of emotions she had obviously been keeping to herself for quite some time now.

The gang member braced herself for more yelling or possibly even a barrage of insults but to Toni's surprise, she watched Cheryl take a long, deep breath and exhale. She leaned her head against the wall and the serpent could see most of the anger leave her body.

"Every time you put on that jacket, it's like a switch inside me flips and all I can think about is losing you," she whispered. Tears welled up in her chocolate brown eyes but Cheryl fought them off desperately.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Toni asked quietly. She wanted nothing more than to stand up and pull Cheryl into the comfort of her arms but she knew better than to approach the Vixens' captain while she was still processing.

Cheryl let out a mirthless laugh and Toni felt something deep in her heart clench at the sound.

"Would it have mattered?" The redhead asked. Her eyes were still alight with emotion but Toni was having a hard time pining down what exactly those emotions were. The tan girl found herself speechless.

In Cheryl's defense, the serpents were for life and Toni loved them; it would take a shift in the universe for the small gang member to abandon her chosen family so to answer Cheryl's question, no, it wouldn't have mattered in the sense that nothing would change. But Cheryl's feelings, her emotions _mattered_ more than anything to Toni. Her heart hurt for the redhead that she had been raised to feel like nothing, like how she felt was irrelevant and Toni wanted to do something, anything to make sure Cheryl knew how important she was. How valid her feelings were.

"We could have talked about it," Toni replied. She fought to keep the slight annoyance that she was feeling about the fact that Cheryl didn't even consider sharing her feelings on the subject in all the time they had been together, out of her voice so that Cheryl didn't find her tone confrontational or aggressive. "After everything we've been through, how could you just keep me in the dark about your feelings? Cheryl we've _talked_ about this and you promised me that you would try to be more open about what's going on in your head."

Cheryl whirled around so fast Toni was afraid the other girl may give herself whiplash.

"I have been," she argued, her posture stiffening with defensiveness. "I do talk to you about things."

"No," Toni disagreed carefully. "You tell me just enough so that I won't think you're shutting me out. It's like you drop little bread crumbs about how you're feeling and then change the subject."

Brown eyes refused to meet her girlfriend's as Cheryl took a sudden interest in a throw rug near her vanity mirror.

Sighing softly, Toni abandoned her seat on the bed and crossed the room, standing just inches from Cheryl now. She hated the way the taller girl stood so hunched in on herself, as if she was trying to take up less space. Toni knew that it was important for her to tread carefully; she and Cheryl made a huge effort to ensure that they communicated well in their relationship and she didn't want to say anything to cause a backslide in their progress.

"I know it's hard," her voice was softer than velvet. "For you to let me in after years of…not having someone but I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere. We are a team Cher, and the only way this is going to work is if you tell me when you're worried or scared or angry or whatever you're feeling. I want to know."

Toni's words were heartwarming and if Cheryl were less damaged, she probably would have found herself comforted by them, she thought to herself.

But Cheryl had heard those words before. She used to have a different teammate; one who she thought would be with her forever. One who shared her dark red locks, her picture perfect smile, and her tenacity when faced with their horrifying family. Once upon a time, Jason Blossom had promised Cheryl largely the same thing; he had been her emotional soundboard for a decade and a half and she, his. And now he was gone; despite all his vows and promises to be there for her always, he was buried in the ground while Cheryl suffocated in the world without him.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Cheryl scoffed bitterly. She allowed herself to glance over at Toni and felt her lungs seize in her chest at the sight of her girlfriend looking at her with her big, golden, patient brown eyes. Toni's brace was still very visible and every time Cheryl saw it, she felt like all of the air was sucked out of the room.

Toni seemed to realize that Cheryl's distress was caused by the sight of her arm and she quickly turned back to the bed and reached for her oversized cardigan. She slipped it on over her arms as quickly as possible, as if she were hiding the evidence that the incident ever happened. It killed the smaller girl to know that her girlfriend felt so much guilt over an accident.

"Cheryl…" Toni began softly. When the redhead refused to look up she came a little closer.

"Baby, it wasn't your fault," Toni promised. She reached out with her good arm and clutched Cheryl's hand. When the taller girl allowed the contact, Toni took it as a good sign and tugged the ginger closer to her, all but forcing brown eyes to meet her own.

"I will tell you that every single day for the rest of our lives if I have to," Toni vowed. "No one blames you for what happened because it was an _accident._ They happen all the time in sports. And you weren't one of the bases for my stunt. Hell, you weren't even in my stunt group."

"I put the groups together Toni," Cheryl snarled. The self-disgust was palpable and Toni felt her already hurting heart shatter for her girlfriend. "It's always going to come back to me. I did this to you."

"But you didn't!" Toni disagreed, raising her voice for the first time since their conversation began. "It was a freak accident! It could have happened to any of the fliers. A perfect storm of little accidents snowballed into one and I fell during cheer practice."

Much to her own horror, Cheryl felt tears once again swimming in her eyes and she found herself unable to fight them off. Her body trembled slightly with emotion and she bit down on her own lip harshly to keep from crying out.

"Cheryl, it wasn't your fault. It was a blimp. A sports injury and more importantly, I am fine. A slight concussion that licensed medical professionals have reassured is not dangerous and broken arm which will be healed within 8 weeks," Toni allowed her sympathetic grief to coat her voice and she suddenly felt exhausted. "You have to forgive yourself, babe. Because there's no one else who blames you."

Unable to keep hold of her emotions any longer, a strangled sob worked its way out of Cheryl's throat and wrapped itself around Toni's lungs, squeezing painfully.

Toni needed no further invitation to eliminate any remaining distance between them and pulled Cheryl into her arms, holding her tightly.

"It's okay babe, let it out," Toni cooed quietly to the ginger. She lead them both back to the bed, never breaking the full contact she had with Cheryl and lied down, pulling the taller girl with her until they were comfortably wrapped together. Cheryl's head was still buried in Toni's chest and tears still poured out of her eyes; the serpent was powerless to stop her girlfriend from feeling so much pain but she did her best to comfort her. She ran her left hand up and down Cheryl's arms and shoulders soothingly while her right hand buried itself in her gorgeous red locks and massaged her scalp.

"I'm here," she promised, as she planted kisses to the crown of Cheryl's head. "I'm not going anywhere. You're never going to be all alone again"

And for the first time since Jason died, Cheryl found herself believing in something, someone other than herself. As long as Toni was by her side, she would be okay.

 **Hello everyone! I just couldn't get the idea for this one shot out of my head so here it is! I'm not sure it ended up being exactly what I thought it would, there may be potential for another chapter but it may be better off as a one shot. I have a couple more prompts rolling around up there so maybe if anyone liked this one I'll share some more. I am a huge sucker for a protective Toni but I also wanted to try my hand at a protective Cheryl. Anyways, let me know what you thought! I love ideas and constructive criticism so if you liked it, I'd love to hear that. Thanks for reading!**


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